Pumpkin Pie Preparation

I have just prepared the dough for my first ever pumpkin pie, which I am going to make tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to it, even though of course I have to change the recipe a bit as I never manage to buy all the ingredients. And I do make shopping lists! Strange.

I don’t have enough eggs for the filling, but the ones I have will just have to do. And I don’t have any maple syrup – I’m guessing honey should be a good enough substitute?

Basically, I treat any recipe like I treat speed limits … They are one suggested way of going about it … don’t have to apply to me though! :)

Cookie Monster Cakes

 

 

 

Like I said in my very first post, I baked poppyseed and blueberry muffins last night. This morning, I turned them into cookie monster cupcakes for my friend’s birthday – it’s an idea I stole from somewhere on The Internets.

I iced the cakes with coloured sugar icing and then dipped them into desiccated coconut, which I had coloured blue before. For the mouths, I cut out tiny pieces of the cakes and stuck cookies into them. The eyes are made from marzipan, with one little chocolate drop each. Somebody recommended more sugar icing to glue the eyes on top of the cakes but that seemed too much hassle; so I just used toothpicks to attach the eyes, which worked just fine.

The poppyseed & blueberry muffins are lovely and moist and not too sweet; I think it all goes rather well together. And both my friend and her four-year-old absolutely loved the cakes! Result!

Old: a logo cake

 

Ladies and gentlement, may I present to you: a cake with the logo of the sports club I’m a member with!

It’s a phoenix, and there were times when I was decorating the cake when I wished we just a a blob or a simple stripe as a logo. But I think the effort was worth it. I copied the logo onto a plastic sheet and then used a stanley knife (utility knife, cardboard cutter; I’m not at home outside the kitchen! :-P) to cut it out so I had a template stencil sort of thing for the dark chocolate icing.

This was also my first home-made recipe designed on paper. I often bake without a recipe but that’s usually me standing in the kitchen throwing things into a bowl, and then mixing and baking them. This recipe was thought through and made up especially for this logo cake. Because the logo colours are black and white, the cake is a very dark chocolate cake with a whitish cream filling. I’ve been told it tasted nice, too. I take it as a good sign that it was gone within minutes. :)

Old: flower petit fours

Pretty flowers! Wheeeee!

I baked flower-shapes cakes and iced them with coloured sugar icing (and white chocolate respectively). They sit on top of cappuccino cake petit fours with vanilla icing. Fairly rich but so yummy! I was going to use green icing on the petit fours but it did make them look a bit disgusting, and for once I wasn’t going for gore but actually wanted cute cakes.

Old: A German Eurovision Song Contest Party

So, this may need some explaining. My friends and I watch the Eurovision Song Contest every year. Because we’re masochists. And it’s a reason to get drunk.

This year, the cake (and costume) theme was Eurovision Songs:

 

 

“Ein bisschen Frieden”
(Video!)
– white chocolate chip cake with white chocolate and cream cheese frosting.
And no, it’s not misspelt. The Italian word for peace is usually printed on most peace flags in Germany. God knows why.

“Satellite”
(Video)
– snowballs; a coconut/spong cake sort of thing with a hint of almond. Delicious!

“Merci Chérie”
(The only Austrian song that ever won the Eurovision! Watch the video!)
– I used ‘Merci‘ and ‘Mon Cherie‘ chocolates for this brownie-style cake, which might make you gain weight if you just look at the photo for long enough!

And finally…

“Taken by a stranger”
(Video)
- a tribute to the German entry this year. If you don’t get it, it probably means you’re sane. :)

Old: Zombie Brains Cupcakes

What do you do with lots of leftover coloured icing? What a silly question! Of course you put it all together into an icing bag and make zombie brains cupcakes! Shame you can’t see the brain shapes properly in this picture.

We had them when we first watched Død snø – what a beautiful little piece of artistic cinema!

Cakes: chocolate coffee fairy cakes; icing: white chocolate & cream cheese. Yum!

 

 

Old: Toadstool fairy cakes

In March, I baked toadstool (fly agaric) fairy cakes for my friend’s birthday. These are strawberry-fromage-frais cakes with a red sugar icing and weird white sugar balls. It’s a good thing I took the pictures back home because they were utterly ruined when I transported them. Still tasted nice though!

Old: Cake Pops

I always follow every trend out there. That’s why I change clothes every two minutes.* And also why I had to bake cake pops! I wasn’t too happy with the recipe or the method but I liked the way they looked. Or most of them did, at least. Decorating cake pops is so much fun and turns the kitchen into such a great mess!

This one looks like it's got a bad disease! Hee!

* Anybody remember The Mighty Boosh? “It’s so cutting edge it goes out of date every three hours. You can’t get it in the shops, it’s delivered by ninjas!”

 

 

 

Old: Cheeserassic Park

AND THEN I TURNED 30.

To help me cope with the shock, I baked cheesy dinosaurs. And made a sloppy photoshop job sign. And then I was happy again!

Old: Boooooooring!

Another year, another birthday party. Expectations were high, and I followed my instincts and ruined it all! They say I’m like a small child, always doing the opposite of what people want me to do; but I don’t think that’s childish. It’s a sign of intelligence. Obviously!

Anyway, so instead of making cool fun cakes, I decided to make the most boring cakes I could think of. You can tell I’m a literature student! ;)

The cakes are white chocolate cakes. The icing was an experiment, and I wasn’t happy with it at all. The writing was done with the help of special food pens, but they are rubbish. The book baking mould shall be used again but I’ll have to find a better way of decorating it.